legal February 2010

legal@lists.fedoraproject.org

25 participants
30 discussions

BSD copyright clause
by Steve Grubb 22 Feb '10

22 Feb '10

Hello, A GPL'ed project includes some 3 clause BSD licensed files. They include this line: * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the * documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. Is the term "binary form" referring to the tarball or a compiled application that uses the file? If it is meant to refer to a compiled app, how do people typically meet this? Just curious.... Thanks, -Steve

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Proper description of mysql's documentation license?
by Tom Lane 20 Feb '10

20 Feb '10

Bug #560181 correctly points out that although mysql's code is distributed under GPL, the associated documentation is not. The reporter proposes classifying it as "Redistributable, no modification permitted", but I thought I'd ask this list about opinions on the best license tag for it. The doc license looks like this: Copyright 1997-2008 MySQL AB, 2009 Sun Microsystems, Inc. This documentation is NOT distributed under a GPL license. Use of this documentation is subject to the following terms: You may create a printed copy of this documentation solely for your own personal use. Conversion to other formats is allowed as long as the actual content is not altered or edited in any way. You shall not publish or distribute this documentation in any form or on any media, except if you distribute the documentation in a manner similar to how Sun disseminates it (that is, electronically for download on a Web site with the software) or on a CD-ROM or similar medium, provided however that the documentation is disseminated together with the software on the same medium. Any other use, such as any dissemination of printed copies or use of this documentation, in whole or in part, in another publication, requires the prior written consent from an authorized representative of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun Microsystems, Inc. and MySQL AB reserve any and all rights to this documentation not expressly granted above. Also: I am thinking of putting the docs into a separate -docs subpackage with its own License tag, rather than confusing matters by labeling the whole package with two very different tags. Any objections to that? Could the "with the software" bit above be read to prohibit such a scheme? Plan C would be to drop the docs entirely and just offer a link to mysql's website, but I don't like that very much ... regards, tom lane

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ftp-0.17-51.fc12 and libreadline
by Julius Davies 19 Feb '10

19 Feb '10

Hi, I see the ftp-0.17-51.fc12.i686.rpm says it's "BSD With Advertising." This isn't the problem: it's all UC-Berkeley, so it can be relicensed to remove the "With Advertising" clause. My question is this: I also see that ftp links against libreadline.so: $ ldd ftp-0.17-51.fc12.i686/usr/bin/ftp libreadline.so.6 Is that okay for BSD code to dynamically link against GPL libraries? And a footnotes of one more package (rpcbind) that appears to have wrong info in its RPM license attribute: rpmquery --info -p rpcbind-0.2.0-4.fc12.i686.rpm License: GPL But we can only find BSD3 and BSD4 files inside it: rpcbind-0.2.0-4/rpcbind-0.2.0/src/check_bound.c;BSD3;,;0 rpcbind-0.2.0-4/rpcbind-0.2.0/src/pmap_svc.c;BSD3;,;0 rpcbind-0.2.0-4/rpcbind-0.2.0/src/rpcbind.c;BSD3;,;0 rpcbind-0.2.0-4/rpcbind-0.2.0/src/rpcb_stat.c;BSD3;,;0 rpcbind-0.2.0-4/rpcbind-0.2.0/src/rpcb_svc_4.c;BSD3;,;0 rpcbind-0.2.0-4/rpcbind-0.2.0/src/rpcb_svc.c;BSD3;,;0 rpcbind-0.2.0-4/rpcbind-0.2.0/src/rpcb_svc_com.c;BSD3;,;0 rpcbind-0.2.0-4/rpcbind-0.2.0/src/rpcinfo.c;BSD3;,;0 rpcbind-0.2.0-4/rpcbind-0.2.0/src/security.c;NONE rpcbind-0.2.0-4/rpcbind-0.2.0/src/util.c;BSD4;,;0 rpcbind-0.2.0-4/rpcbind-0.2.0/src/warmstart.c;BSD3;,;0 -- yours, Julius Davies 250-592-2284 (Home) 250-893-4579 (Mobile) http://juliusdavies.ca/logging.html

2 1

18 Feb '10

Hi, I'm finding that media file are not attributed to the same degree that source code files are. License and copyright notices are often stated at the file-level for source code files... probably because these files have a way of migrating to other software packages. Media files have a way of migrating around too, yet license and copyright attribution is hardly ever included within the file. Sometimes it's even impossible to store that kind of information in a media file. Music files seem to have better attribution than video or images. It can be difficult to determine who has copyright on an image file found in a Fedora package. The problem gets worse if a few years pass and memories fade, and VCS-es migrate. In my opinion these copyright holes introduce licensing uncertainty, and it serves our Free Software ecosystem well to attribute files with license and copyright notices. It can probably be considered as mostly an upstream problem, but there is also the special case of when a Fedora maintainer adds a media file to a package. Should there be (or is there already) a policy or guideline about per-file license and copyright notices? How about a policy just for Fedora maintainers for any media files they incorporate into a package? GNU Savannah (http://sv.gnu.org) enforces copyright and license notices for new upstream packages that it hosts. I'm not on the list, so please include me in replies. Ben

2 1

xorg-x11-drv-wacom license
by Peter Hutterer 17 Feb '10

17 Feb '10

Hi guys, During a review of the wacom project I found this gem in most of the source files (highlights mine): * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or * modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License ^^ GPL * as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 * of the License, or (at your option) any later version. * * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the * GNU Lesser General Public License for more details. ^^ LGPL * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License ^^ GPL * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software * Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. So the first paragraph explicitly states that the software is GPLv2+ (and the last paragraph suggests the same). The second paragraph refers to the LGPL. Ping, the upstream maintainer suggested that it "Must be a copy/paste error." The project itself ships the tarballs exclusively with the GPL document. Back in the day it used to contain a LGPL-licensed part but that part has since been removed. I just wanted to double-check that this is in fact counts as GPLv2 or whether it requires GPLv2 and LGPLv2 or some similar tag. Also, some advice on whether it is appropriate to correct this error upstream without legal repercussions would be much appreciated. Both Ping and I (the two maintainers) agree that GPL is the intended license. Cheers, Peter

4 4

licensing of private build tools
by Michal Hlavinka 17 Feb '10

17 Feb '10

Hi, I'm looking into ksh package. This package is licensed as CPL. For building ksh's own tools are required. Upstream have two source tarballs: 1) ast-ksh 2) INIT First tarball contains only CPL licensed files and is the only source for ksh itself. Second tarball is CPL licensed too except one file licensed with ZLIB. This is used only for build tool, nowhere else. Is it required to have ZLIB in spec file or not? Cheers, Michal

2 1

Offering Fedora installation service etc.
by Martin Killmann 16 Feb '10

16 Feb '10

Hello everyone, I'm unsure whether this is the right place to ask, if not, please point me in the right direction. We're a server company that sells Linux systems from embedded to big iron, (http://www.plathome.co.jp/products/server/) and we also offer Fedora preinstalled on customer request. Now, the question is whether there are licensing issues we can run into when offering Fedora preinstallation, support and other services. Are there any parts of the distribution that are critical, such as proprietary drivers? Please advise. Best regards, Martin Killmann Plat'Home -------------------------------------- Martin Killmann Plat'Home Co., Ltd. International Sales Akihabara Daibiru 9F 1-18-13 Sotokanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 101-0021 Japan E-mail: martin(a)plathome.co.jp Tel: +81-3-3251-2603 Fax: +81-3-3251-0629

2 1

rpm license attribute: abrt, eclipse-cdt, mtools, ortp
by Julius Davies 16 Feb '10

16 Feb '10

Hi, My co-author detected some slight errors in some RPM license attributes. Errors listed below: abrt-0.0.11-2.fc12.i686.rpm License: GPLv2+ --- Our source file scan detected some GPLv2 (strict) files: abrt-0.0.11/lib/Plugins/Kerneloops.cpp;GPLv2;,;0 abrt-0.0.11/lib/Plugins/KerneloopsReporter.cpp;GPLv2;,;0 abrt-0.0.11/lib/Plugins/KerneloopsScanner.cpp;GPLv2;,;0 abrt-0.0.11/lib/Plugins/KerneloopsSysLog.cpp;GPLv2;,;0 abrt-0.0.11/lib/Utils/copyfd.cpp;GPLv2;,;0 abrt-0.0.11/lib/Utils/logging.cpp;GPLv2;,;0 abrt-0.0.11/lib/Utils/xfuncs.cpp;GPLv2;,;0 abrt-0.0.11/src/Hooks/dumpoops.cpp;GPLv2;,;0 eclipse-cdt-6.0.1-7.fc13.i686.rpm License: EPL and CPL --- We are unable to find any source files with CPL, although some documentation files in the source RPM do specify this license. mtools-4.0.12-1.fc13.i686.rpm License: GPLv2+ --- We are unable to find any source files that are GPLv2+. They appear to all be GPLv3+. ortp-0.16.1-1.fc13.i686.rpm License: LGPLv2+ and VSL --- We're less sure we found a problem with this one, but thought we'd let you know we're having trouble locating the source of the VSL licensing. Thanks very much for clarifying my understanding in that previous thread about a month ago! -- yours, Julius Davies 250-592-2284 (Home) 250-893-4579 (Mobile) http://juliusdavies.ca/logging.html

2 1

Chromium Uninstall Y\N?
by Frank Murphy 14 Feb '10

14 Feb '10

Is it ok to keep Chromium+deps installed? -- Regards, Frank Murphy UTF_8 Encoded

1 0

[Fwd: Fathead ToS]
by Máirín Duffy 12 Feb '10

12 Feb '10

Fat Head is this company that produces large stickers and a few folks have mentioned wanting to get Fedora logo fathead stickers printed. John Rose righfully noted their TOS seem a little off. What do you think? ~m -------- Forwarded Message -------- http://www.fathead.com/TermsAndConditions.aspx I didn't read it all but was unsure about this section at least: "By uploading your image submission, you hereby grant Fathead and its affiliates and assigns a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, publicly display, reproduce and distribute your image submission in any format." That just sounded preposterous to me. What do you think? John

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legal February 2010